The good news has now been confirmed.
DNA tests confirm wild gray wolves in Okanogan Co.. Associated Press (as printed in Idaho Statesman).
Update: there are 6 pups. So a North Cascades pack of 8 wolves!
Update: there are photos in this story. Long-absent wolves denning in Washington. Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
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any word on whether these were wolves traveling west from Idaho or south from BC? Thought I’d read earlier that they were thought to have moved south from BC, but wondering if that’s known yet?
BegoCWC,
They did a genetic analysis to make sure they were pure wolf, but they can also use the blood to match with Idaho wolves and determine this.
So far no word.
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Update: the article I just posted suggested most likely the wolves did not come over from Idaho, but down from B.C.
Photos and a recording can me seen/heard at:
http://www.conservationnw.org/pressroom/press-releases/wolf-pack-confirmed-in-washington-state
The Methow is a different sort of place than many parts of the rural west. It will be interesting to see if the community, and local agricultural interests, can embrace this turn of events.
Thanks, Ralph.
Below details can be found at the link that Wolverine Dreams posted above:
“Today, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife received confirmation from DNA lab results that two adult canids collared last Friday in the Methow Valley are pure wolf, likely having moved in from Canada.
Additional background of Cascades gray wolf:
The “Cascade Mountains wolf” is a subspecies of the gray wolf that has lived in the forested regions from the Cascade Range to the Pacific Coast.”
The whole issue of subspecies is always tricky (even when there is no social or political issues involved…the concept itself is difficult to define and one scientist’s subspecies is another’s variant population), but I believe that the current consensus among wolf scientists (not everyone agrees, of course), is that there are five wolf subspecies in North America; arctos; baileyi; nubilus; occidentalis; and lycaon (which may not be a gray wolf, but the red wolf…btw, sorry for lack of italics, I can’t find them on this computer). I don’t think “Cascades wolf” is currently widely recognized as a subspecies anymore. From what I’ve read however, the Alexander Archipelago wolf of coastal Alaska is almost certainly a separate subspecies, and I don’t know if it has gotten official scientific recognition yet. It is a small, dark wolf of the temperate rainforest they preys mainly on the small Sitka blacktail deer (it also consumes a great deal of salmon during the runs, like bears!).
Great to see wolves breeding in Washington again…hopefully, we’ll see lots more.